


Snow Day

by theotherpope



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, M/M, Movie Night, but not very much at all, mainly focused on the team, root is flirty as always, slight finch/reese hinted at
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:33:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24473590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theotherpope/pseuds/theotherpope
Summary: Prompt for Exchange of Interest.The team are snowed in and stuck in the subway. Harold is absolutely, positively, wholly convinced they can make it through one night without any serious incidents.If only he actually believed that.
Relationships: Harold Finch & John Reese, Harold Finch & Root | Samantha Groves, John Reese & Sameen Shaw, Root | Samantha Groves/Sameen Shaw
Comments: 9
Kudos: 38
Collections: Exchange of Interest 2020





	Snow Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reeby10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeby10/gifts).



> Prompt for reeby10 for Exchange of Interest. 
> 
> I am so here for the found family dynamic of this group! I love how they all have so many issues they have to work through, and they do with the help of the others and finding a purpose with the Machine. I'd love to see more about them during their down time, what they do when they're just hanging out, that sort of thing. Also case fic where they're all working together on one number or problem would be great too.
> 
> Prompts:  
> \- Leverage AU  
> \- Root forces everyone into a team movie night.  
> \- They're all snowed in at the train station and have to figure out how to get along and what to do until it clears out.  
> \- The Librarians (TV) AU

When Harold sent John and Shaw off for some recon on their latest number and asked for them to report back, he hadn’t expected for it to be so soon.

“Did you forget something?” he asked as they returned to the subway. It was unlike them to leave anything behind, though the misery painted on Shaw’s face suggested there was more to the story than that. She ignored Harold and was already stomping off toward their storage lockers by the time John returned to Harold’s desk.

“We’re snowed in,” he explained, shrugging out of the coat he had put on only minutes before. “The door is frozen solid.”

“Not for long.” Shaw barely spared them a glance as she breezed by them again, a heavy shovel being dragged along behind her. “Give me ten minutes.”

They watched her leave, and Harold prayed she could dig them out of there, if only for his own sake. He didn’t fancy being cooped up with an irate Shaw without an escape; she was difficult enough when she happened to be in a good mood, let alone when she was cold and tired.

“What’s going on?”

Harold inwardly groaned. At least he thought it was inward, but John was shooting him an amused half smile that told him otherwise. It wasn’t Harold’s fault. If he thought Shaw would be in a bad mood when it was just himself and John…

“What are you still doing here?” Root asked again. She came to sit on Harold’s desk, much to his chagrin, and he had to shoo her hands away from playing with his computer monitor.

“Snow storm. We’re trapped inside for the moment.”

“How cosy,” she swung her bunny slippers back and forth, and she barely avoided kicking John, probably on purpose, who didn’t flinch one bit. “Where’s your better looking partner in crime?”

Shaw took that moment to march back down the subway stairs. As she came closer, she threw the pieces of her broken shovel down to the floor and stood stiffly before them. “We’re snowed in.”

“With those kind of observational skills, you could work for the government or something,” John remarked. “What happened? Did you get angry at the snow and try and beat it with the shovel?”

If Shaw’s thunderous expression was anything to go by, then that was exactly what happened.

“Lighten up, Sameen. It’ll be just like a sleepover. We can watch trashy teen movies, talk about boys, practice making out…”

“Do you need the practice, Shaw?” asked John, almost managing to appear sincere.

“You’re going to need to practice shutting your mouth if you don’t want to spend the next year of your life eating meals through a straw,” she threatened, shoulder checking him as she sulked by, though he brushed it off without so much as a grimace.

“Come now,” Harold spun in his chair to address them all, clearing his throat to grab Root’s attention from Shaw while the other woman took off her jacket. She didn’t look the least bit sorry to be caught. “Let’s not make the situation even more difficult with pointless squabbling. You’ll find there’s enough space for us all, at least for a few days. We have supplies and plenty of creature comforts thanks to Ms Grove’s previous stint down here. We can find a way to get along.”

He looked around at them all pointedly, waiting for someone to agree with him. When they did nothing but look dubious at his words of encouragement, he huffed loudly and stood up, waving his hands in the air for emphasis. “We are four capable, semi-functioning adults who have faced up against more catastrophic horrors than this! We can survive each other’s company for a handful of days!”

If only he believed it himself.

***

Harold took his space for granted. He had his desktop set up _just so_ , right down to the angle of his monitors and the space between the edge of the desk and his keyboard. Having somewhere that was solely his own in such a communal space was important; not only for his work, but for his own peace of mind.

Which is what made this so upsetting.

“I would kindly ask you, _again_ , to find your own chair to sit in,” he demanded hotly, setting down his green tea and cringing even now at the way Root had pushed the backrest all the way back with her feet splayed on the desk. “We have plenty.”

“I like this one, Harry.”

“It’s the same as any of the _many others_ we have.”

Root smiled. It was a touch too condescending for Harold’s taste - and by ‘a touch’, he obviously meant it was overtly so. “If that’s the case, then what’s the bother?”

 _The bother_ was that this was _his_ chair, something Root knew. She was only sitting in it to irritate Harold, and the worst part was that it was working, much to his annoyance.

“There must be something else you can set your mind to. I imagine there’s no end to the list of tasks the Machine requires from you, what with your unique ability to act on her behalf,” he said, trying to appeal to the fanatical disciple in her. There was normally a fifty percent chance of it succeeding.

“Not today. She’s giving me this time to indulge in a personal passion project of mine.” Root was staring out across the subway, not bothering to try and hide her shameless leering. Harold followed her gaze and spotted John and Shaw running through circuits together. From the look of the fine sheen of sweat coating both of them and the wayward strands of hair that had fallen from Shaw’s tight ponytail, Harold guessed they had been at it a while.

“I see,” he muttered, diverting his attention sideways. Just because Root was enjoying the show, it didn’t mean Harold was going to be quite as lecherous.

Even if it _was_ something rather wonderful to behold.

“Don’t be so shy. If they had a problem with us looking, they would have said something. Besides, they just happened to decide to run a work out when we’re all crammed down here together in the middle of a snow storm? That sounds like an open invitation to me.”

“You assume everything is an open invitation to do anything you like. Speaking of, could you _please_ remove yourself from my chair?”

Root swung her legs down and stood. She didn’t move away, but leaned across the desk to further invade Harold’s space, shooting him a positively salacious smile. “Admit you enjoy watching John getting hot and sweaty.”

Harold refused to admit anything of the sort. He pressed his mouth into a fine line, unimpressed with her needling. “If you’re bored, Ms Groves, I can find any number of tasks for you to busy yourself with. You need only ask.”

“Will any of them involve her not talking?” It was Shaw. She and John made their way over, wiping at their skin with towels and looking far too attractive for two people who had been exercising. If it had been Harold, he would be red all over and in sore need of the rest of the day off.

“I can think of a couple things you can keep me quiet with, Sameen,” Root practically purred, all her attention now diverted. Harold took advantage of the distraction to slide past her into his chair and immediately get to work restoring it to his preferences.

“Don’t,” John murmured to Shaw with more than a hint of pleading to his voice, stopping her from biting back. “Don’t say anything. She’ll just turn it back on you and then we’ll all have to listen to it.”

“Quite right. Rather than antagonising one another, we should use this time to bring us closer together,” Harold agreed wholeheartedly, and then realised his mistake when Root’s eyes lit up like Christmas day. “Not like that! I mean some team bonding, some trust exercises. Goodness knows we need it.”

Shaw dropped her towel onto Harold’s desk and he cringed. Was nothing sacred about his space any more? “Count me out. I’m not doing some trust fall just for you to drop me on my ass.”

“That’s exactly why we _should_ explore these activities…”

“No offence, Finch, but I don’t think you or Root have the strength to hold me up, even if you wanted to,” added John, giving them a crooked smile.

“Let’s move away from trust falls! I’m talking about group activities, like puzzles and brain teasers, maybe a good, old-fashioned brain storming session to tackle the Hodge conjecture…” Shaw and John groaned in unison at his idea. He frowned at them in annoyance, though his frustration could have had something to do with his chair, which was refusing to adjust how he liked it. “If you have any idea that doesn’t include firearms, then I’d love to hear it,” he snapped.

“How about a movie night?” They all turned to look at Root. She had picked Shaw’s towel off the desk and was folding it into a neat square. When none of them immediately replied, she arched a single eyebrow at them. “Unless you’d rather spend the evening solving algebra problems with Harold…”

“A movie sounds good.”

“I’ll find us some snacks.”

“We can use the monitors.”

Shaw and John hurried off. After watching them leave, Root leaned over Harold’s shoulder and kissed his cheek. “They just need the right incentive.” With that, she pulled at the chair lever he was struggling to reach and the backrest snapped up into place; it was just how he liked it. “It’ll be fun, Harry.”

‘Fun’ was highly subjective whenever those three were involved.

***

How was there still another hour to go of the movie? Another hour and twelve minutes, to be exact, except knowing how long there was to go wasn’t making time move any quicker.

At least the others were enjoying it, and Harold supposed that had been the entire point of the activity. They’d thrown together a makeshift couch using old subway seats and the spare bedding from when Root had been confined underground. Harold was squeezed between John and Root with a tub of popcorn in his lap and Bear at his socked feet.

While John was proving to be rather comfortable to lean against for the better part of an hour, the same couldn’t be said for Root. She was all elbows and sharp edges beneath the blanket they all shared.

“ _Ow_ ,” he complained again, the third time in as many minutes. Bear’s ears perked up to attention - at least somebody was listening to him. “This movie was your idea. Can’t you keep still for five minutes so I might actually watch it in peace?”

He was shushed immediately by Shaw on Root’s other side, making Harold huff in annoyance and try to shift away from the pair. It had become clear within the first five minutes of watching Die Hard that she considered it a favourite; he had watched in quiet surprise as Shaw mouthed along to the script, a muted satisfaction coaxing a smile to her lips with certain lines.

It made sense. Half the things she said sounded like they’d been ripped straight from a bad eighties cop show.

“Don’t act like you haven’t seen this a dozen times before. You’re not going to miss anything,” John said quietly.

“This scene is important.”

“You said that about all of them.”

“And they were all important!” Shaw grabbed a handful of popcorn from her own bucket, one she outright refused to share with Root, and threw it at John with as much malice as if she’d thrown a grenade instead.

A piece pinged off Harold’s glasses. “ _No_ , not on the blanket.”

“I’m not trying to get the blanket, I’m trying to get Reese.” She threw another handful and Harold batted it away before it got to his face this time.

“Try to remember that there are two other people between yourself and Mr Reese! Oh, it’s _sticky_ …” He drew his handkerchief out delicately and dabbed at the mess left over his hand. “Oh, _look,_ and it’s on the blanket! This is hand wash only.”

“Rewind it,” Shaw ordered, nudging Root in the side as she took another handful of popcorn and shoved it in her mouth this time.

“Do we need to? You already know what happens,” John tried, but Root was already rewinding it back and doing a terrible job at hiding her smile.

“Sorry. You don’t get remote privilege after you got it stuck on the Spanish subs. Besides, I like Sameen a lot more than I like you, John.”

“Root…” Harold warned softly.

“What?” she demanded, not looking the least bit apologetic about her remark. “We all have our favourites.”

“I don’t.” Root raised her eyebrows higher than he thought was possible while Shaw openly scoffed. Even John was struggling to hide his smile. “I don’t!”

“Don’t be so coy. We don’t mind.”

“I do not play favourites.”

“Oh, really?” Root smirked, clearly not buying it at all. She leaned in close and Harold nearly went cross eyed in trying to keep her in focus.

“Absolutely not.”

“That’s a shame,” she cooed, then settled back to Shaw’s side, who had already snatched up the remote and was rewinding the scene a second time. “Because the big lug certainly thinks very highly of _you._ ”

Harold glanced toward John, who merely shrugged back at him with a slight half smile. “The choices are you, the psychopath who tried to kidnap you, or her tiny, aggressive girlfriend.”

Shaw didn’t seem bothered by his assessment at all. “Don’t forget the dog.”

“Sure, Bear, too.”

“I was talking about Lionel,” she said, and Harold frowned in disapproval.

“Let’s not ruin movie night with horrid character assassinations…”

“Too late,” Shaw grumbled. She tossed her corner of the blanket aside and rolled to stand in one fluid movement. Popcorn scattered by her feet and Bear inched forward on his belly to snuffle them up. “Movie night was ruined when you guys started flapping your mouths through all the good bits. I can’t be bothered now.”

“We chose this specifically for you.”

“That doesn’t sound like my problem.” She walked off, then paused a couple of feet away to send Root a pointed look. “I’m off to find something else to do.”

Root turned to the other two with a cheshire smile. “I think that’s me. Enjoy the movie, boys.”

“There’s another hour to go,” said Harold, leaning away from her dangerous elbows when she stood to follow Shaw. “We’re in the middle of team bonding.”

“Exactly.” She gave him a helpless shrug when Shaw barked her name down the subway. “I’m following orders and learning to play with others. That’s the point of this, right?”

He watched her go without another word. The movie played on and he sighed, picking at a stray piece of popcorn. When he looked back to John, it was to find him pausing the movie. “You’re leaving, too?”

John handed over the remote. “No. If we’re going to be watching something, then pick something you’re going to enjoy. Shaw doesn’t get to pick the movie when she’s not even here to watch it.”

Harold tucked the excess blanket beneath his legs and scrolled through the listings. There was room now to spread out, but both he and John stayed right where they were, their sides pressed up against one another.

Yes, he had a favourite. There were few people Harold would rather spend his snow day with than Mr Reese.


End file.
